Tag Archives: Binaural Recording

DKO at FRANK Part 2: Everyday Music (2012)

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This is an excerpt from a performance by DKO from the MCAD MFA open studio night on December 7, 2012 as discussed in the post Live Binaural Recording of DKO with Oliver Grudem. The document features Oliver Grudem (not shown) who produced the audiovisual score in real-time. The video and sound coming from the LED display and loud speaker below it was broadcast into the performance space as Oliver walked around the Minneapolis Uptown area during a snow storm. The visuals and sound from his walk provided a “score” for us to respond to as we improvised. Oliver was also able to hear our musical reactions to the audiovisual score as he was broadcasting and respond accordingly.

The piece was recorded with my custom built binaural head microphone to capture the sound localization of the performance space. NOTE: It is necessary to wear high quality headphones to experience the binaural effect. The spatial properties of studio monitors are also acceptable but will not produce the same localization of the sound sources. Thanks goes out to Eric Dowell for shooting video of the one hour long performance. I am working on editing a shorter version to briefly summarize the essence of the piece. This 13 minute video is a more in depth snapshot of what the performance entailed.

David Byrne’s Installation with DKO in Binaural Sound

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This is another binaural recording featuring David Byrne’s installation “Playing the Building” at Aria in Minneapolis, this time with the ensemble DKO (Jon Davis on bass clarinet, John Keston on the installation, and Graham O’Brien on percussion).

You can read more about the installation at Aria’s website, but it lends itself perfectly to being documented through binaural recording techniques because the sounds literally come from all around you. There are motors, mallets, and pipes installed on walls, girders, and metal stairs in the historic, gutted, warehouse building, all which are activated from the keyboard of a repurposed, antique, pump organ.

The recording was made with a custom built binaural head microphone. I made the device with a styrofoam mannequin head, a set of silicone ears designed for acupuncture practice, and a pair of Shure MX202 microphones embedded into the ear canals. Once again it is critical that you wear headphones to experience the localized binaural effect, although I just listened on my studio monitors and it sounds very clear and wide, maintaining lots of the spatial qualities.

Binaural Video of David Byrne’s Installation Playing the Building

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On November 27, 2012 I made a binaural recording of David Byrne’s installation, Playing the Building (2012), at Aria in Minneapolis. During my session in the space I recorded a solo performance of myself, a duet with me and Jon Davis on bass clarinet, and a trio (DKO) with me, Graham O’Brien on drums and Jon Davis. I used a binaural head to record each performance. I have been interested in building a binaural head for some time, and finally got the parts together including a mannequin head, silicone ears, and overhead microphones capsules. I’ll share more about “Vincent” (the head’s name), and the rest of the recordings soon. For now here’s a video of my solo performance. Remember to listen using headphones in order to hear the binaural spatial effects. You’ll hear the installation surrounding you, a visitor bouncing a tennis ball off to the right, and occasional interjections of people in conversation.

Normalized Binaural Back Alley Ambiance

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One of the very first tests I made using my DIY binaural mics was this example of back alley ambiance. I stood as still as possible because this first version of the headset had a stiff cable that was very sensitive to vibrations. Birds and traffic are the most obvious sounds, but there is a high pitched screeching going on throughout the recording that became even more noticeable after applying normalization. While making the recording I actually took the mics out of my ears to make sure they weren’t generating the tone and I knew I wasn’t going crazy when it turned up in the recording. The sound is either a near by train, or a neighbor using a power tool. It sounds more like a tool, but the freight trains that go through my neighborhood make some very similar sounds to this.

Binaural Back Alley Ambiance

Roll Your Own Binaural Microphone

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First of all, thanks to Leafcutter John for encouraging me to look into binaural recording. As a result I spent most of last Sunday designing and building a set of binaural microphones. What’s surprising is that I had everything I needed in my home. I started with a couple of old Mac computer mics that my friend Kevin gave me a few weeks ago. I tore them apart and removed the electret capsules from the circuit boards. I found a set of silicone ear-buds from an old mobile phone headset that fit the capsules perfectly. After that it was pretty easy.

On my first attempt I used the cabling from an old set of airline headphones, but the stiff wire going from the right to the left microphone was too sensitive to vibrations. After all that work I decided to disassemble it and start again. This time I sacrificed an old pair of JVC headphones. The cabling was much better and had separate cables to each driver. This time I used a paper hole punch to modify the ear-buds so the back of the capsules weren’t stuck in a vacuum. I used colored heat shrink to specify left and right, added a tiny bit of foam between the capsule and the ear-bud, then mounted a couple of layers of foam over the outside.

I was pleasantly surprised by the few test recordings I made. For the majority of the tests I placed the ear-buds into my ears and kept as still as possible since the mics are quite sensitive while plugged into the Sony PCM-D50. I ended up using the 20dB pad, although I got a better sound without the low cutoff filter enabled. For some other examples visit this post on Leafcutter John’s blog.

Binaural Finger Snaps